Talk about your rags to riches to even greater riches story, David Geffen has lived it all.

About the only thing I have in common with David Geffen besides our taste in music is that we were both born in Brooklyn, New York. While he went on to find fame and fortune in the recording and film industries I’ve managed to struggle along pretty much anonymously.

Such is life.

Born in relative obscurity back in 1943 David Geffen managed to struggle his way through high school and then headed out to California to attend Santa Monica College. Apparently it wasn’t to his liking and he dropped out and headed back east. He tried Brooklyn College and called it quits after only three semesters. It was time to get a job.

He got his start by lying his way into a position in the mailroom of the William Morris Agency. At the time he was given a job under the provision that he could prove he was a college graduate. When the agency went to check his credentials the ever-resourceful Geffen managed to intercept a letter from UCLA (where he claimed he graduated from) and manipulated the wording to show the he had indeed graduated and a career was about to be born.

Geffen took that advice and formed Asylum Records back in 1970. The name itself came as the result of the label signing artists who had been turned down by other studios. It wasn’t long before he gathered a pretty impressive list that include the likes of The Eagles, Joni Mitchell, Bob Dylan, Tom Waits, Linda Ronstadt and Warren Zevon. Not bad for a relatively newcomer to the industry.

As a side note, Joni Mitchell’s tune Free Man in Paris was written with Geffen in mind.

On a personal note, Geffen has never been ashamed of being openly gay. He was even rumored to have been married to quasi movie star Keanu Reeves whose sexuality was and still is open for debate. Those rumors have been widely discredited.

Today, Geffen is estimated to be worth about $5.5 billion dollars.

If you ask me, that’s not bad for a kid from Brooklyn who lied his way into a job in the mailroom and proceeded to go about living the American Dream